Allusion

As would be expected from a story that alludes to Dante in its title and has a protagonist named after a Dantean character, "Dante and the Lobster" is rife with allusions. The allusions, in fact, give the story much of its meaning. The Divine Comedy, of course, is the primary text Beckett alludes to, but Christianity also appears prominently in the text in many explicit and implicit ways. The lobster, for instance, represents Christ and man in general in many ways (going through the travails of life only to be sacrificed), but smaller events and details in the story also carry Christian meaning: Belacqua "scoops up" his copy of Dante and holds it flat in his hands like a priest holding a Bible; the narrator refers to the "canti of the moon" as a "quodlibet," or a theological debate; the grocer, "instead of washing his hands like Pilate...